'New York University’s golf coach said he was forced to resign Oct. 12 after university officials learned that he accompanied players to a strip club while the team was competing in Florida in March.

Jay Donovan, the coach since September 2005, told a student newspaper, The Washington Square News, in an article published Wednesday that he and six of the eight players on the trip went to a strip club they passed when they were lost in the Fort Lauderdale area. The team was competing in a tournament in Weston, about 20 miles to the west.

Donovan told the newspaper that the visit to the strip club was revealed after several players quit the team Oct. 12. The newspaper reported that a player younger than 20 consumed at least one alcoholic beverage.

Donovan said the players acted after John Pharr, the team captain, was criticized by Chris Bledsoe, the athletic director, for skipping a practice two days before. When the players’ parents found out they had quit, they called Bledsoe and told him of the visit, Donovan said.

Donovan, 43, said that he only smoked a cigar in the club and that no money of his or the university’s was spent. In such a case, no N.C.A.A. rule would appear to have been violated.'